Battle of the Elements: Team Yotogi v. Team Kirā
Team Kirā walked into the make shift battle field to find one of Hugo's clones already waiting. Calm and serene before the coming conflict, the four shinobi sat down and waited for their opponents to arrive. The masked quatrain of Team Yotogi walked into the battlefield, calmly but in a strict order. They stopped at a few feet of Hugo's clone, straight across Team Kirā, silently and motionlessly waiting until either their opponents or Hugo signified the initiation of the match. Sōsuke walked up to the center of the arena and waited for one of the masked shinobi to step up and face him. The cat-masked leader gave a small nod, and another cat-masked ANBU stepped forward, the long red hair that escaped the emotionless features of her mask signifying that she was a woman. She fixed her gloves, and got low into her fighting stance, her mask still concealing the expression on her face. Round 1: A Battle of Taijutsu! Sōsuke observed the masked woman who stepped up to face him. After taking note of her lithe figure he cleared his throat and spoke, "You gonna keep that mask on while you fight or will you show me the courtesy of fighting face to face. Regardless, my name is Sōsuke, mind telling me yours?" "I will tell you my name when I feel like it. And about my mask... If you wanna see my face, you'll have to tear it off." The voice was calm, but sparkling with joy at moments. "Now... Enough with the chit-chat. Let's do this." She took a single step, and body-flickered away to Sōsuke's right. Wth hands glowing with chakra, she launched a punch at the ground which caused a massive shockwave, devastating almost the entire area, making both of the teams take a step back. The force of the punch caused a giant wave of earth and boulders to be thrown into the air, falling down on Sōsuke as a deadly rain. Jumping off the ground, Sōsuke lunged headfirst into the hail of falling stones and began jumping from boulder to boulder while dodging as best as he could. Finally leaping off the last boulder he punched a few smaller ones out of his way and landed behind his opponent. Extending his hand towards her head, he tried to rip the mask off her face. The woman jumped backwards acrobatically and while standing still for a moment, she once more charged chakra into the palms of her hands. She sped up towards the man, and swung her hand towards her. However, instead of dealing massive damage, it was able to cut part of his shirt, showing that she was using the Chakra Scalpel technique now. After her failed strike, she turned around vertically, and finished her salto by slamming her leg, that was strengthened by chakra unlike her hands, into the ground near Sōsuke, creating a giant crater. Sōsuke offered no resistance as he slid down the crater. As he neared the center he focused chakra in his feet and jumped high into the air. At the top of his arc he threw a number of senbon at his opponent before landing with a quick roll and running towards her. The woman jumped back, but some senbon still managed to hit her. Two scratched her left arm, one her left leg and one pierced her mask. She quickly pulled out the senbon and ran towards Sōsuke, her fist glowing blue with chakra. However, it was unclear if this sterned from her Chakra Scalpel technique or her raw strength. Sōsuke slowed down in caution as he saw her run towards him with glowing fists. The chakra scalpel of hers had already cut him in his chest though she seemed unaware of the fact that she had landed the first successful blow. Realizing that this was no ordinary opponent, Sōsuke started to jump away from her and coming to a stop some distance from her, focused his chakra and opened the first of the Eight Gates, the Gate of Opening. With his strength greatly increased he rushed his opponent. Behind the mask, the woman's eyes widened slightly when noticing the small peak in her opponent's chakra. She gathered an immense amount of chakra into her arms, designed to release on her point of contact. She aimed a punch at Sōsuke, missed, and aimed a second one. The missed strike's air displacement was so big the other members could feel it blow back their hair, but the woman's teammates hadn't even moved until their teammate had began the fight, their attitudes cold and uncaring. Noticing the raw power her punches held, Sōsuke realized a single hit could be fatal and decided to go on the offensive. Moving really fast, he suddenly appeared behind his opponent and launched her into the air and began executing the Shadow of the Dancing Leaf. While in the air he wrapped his arms around her, pinning her arms to her sides and began spinning at a high speed, aiming to use the Front Lotus to piledrive her headfirst into the ground. Not allowing herself to panic, the female ANBU concentrated and, using her precise chakra control, she released a wave chakra from her fists, causing Sōsuke to lose his grip. Still in mid-air, she quickly turned around and kicked him in the gut, although not with as much strength as before. Sōsuke was thrown away, and the woman landed on the ground, panting by the amount of chakra she had used. Seconds after, her masked fell on the ground, several meters away. The woman laughed, but her face was still invisible to Sōsuke as her hair concealed it. She then lifted herself up, and looked her opponent into the eyes. "My name is Kineda Tamaha. It seems that you're quit an opponent, I might say." She swung her leg straight up and kicked down, causing a pillar of earth to rise. This was not meant to actually damage Sōsuke, but rather served to hide Kineda's position, as she appeared behind hm and aimed a punch at his back. Sōsuke was thrown straight into the earthen pillar and through it as Kineda's punch landed on his back. Spitting out some blood, Sōsuke slowly got to his feet and properly saw Kineda's face for the first time. Admiring her beauty he realized that had they not been opponents in this fight, he might have been attracted to her, even if he didn't trust her. "You are not bad yourself," he said. Changing tactics, he began running in circles around her, all the while forming hand seals at a blurring speed. Finally he came to a stop in front of her and shouted "Water Release: Water Dragon Bullet Technique, as a giant, powerful dragon made of water formed behind him and slammed into Kineda. The force of the water was tremendous, slamming down on her like solid concrete. It streamed down her mouth, ears, nose, took away her sight and all awareness of her surroundings. Others surely would have panicked, but not Kineda. She was trained for these dire situations. Charging chakra around her hands, she cut through the water with her chakra scalpel with a finely tuned strike and went after Sōsuke with various kicks and punches, although these seemed not to be strengthened by her chakra. Sōsuke dodged the punches and kicks as best as he could but a few landed. But he was surprised that they were not chakra enhanced. It looked like Kineda had finally made a mistake, but Sōsuke was still suspicious. Underestimating his opponent was not a mistake he was going to make. But neither was he going to let go of his opportunity. Punching her with his full force he freed up some space and quickly opened the second and third gates. With blinding speed he began landing quickfire punches on her. As soon as Sōsuke's punches hit her body, Kineda poofed away, revealing to be a shadow clone. The real Kineda came running from behind Sōsuke and struck him in the back. The punch wasn't really as powerful as it would have been with her Chakra Enhanced Strength, and Sōsuke wasn't even knocked over by it. But as soon as he tried to turn around and fight Kineda, he fell to the ground helplessly. Kineda laughed. "This is my Important Body Points Disturbance technique. I spend years training on it, and it isn't very easy to overcome either. It disrupts the signals from your brain to your nervous system. See if you can figure it out." Meanwhile, she charged chakra into her palms, so much that the air itself became heavy by it. Sōsuke grimaced as he realized what had happened. But he still had a trump card up his sleeve. He slowed down his breathing and partially released his Cursed Seal. As both his arms converted into his Cursed Seal Stage 2 form he partly pushed off from the ground with some difficulty. "'' Nicely done. I might not be at a 100% but you are greatly mistaken if you think this is done." He started to create some clumsy hand seals and performed the Water Prison Technique on himself. Smiling slightly as he looked at his opponent from within his defensive prison, he began trying to move all his body parts and figure out how everything was working. He might not be a medical-nin, but he was a taijutsu master and knew his body better then anyone. He would figure this out, one way or another. Kineda didn't react to Sōsuke's taunts, nor did she prevent him from figuring out how to move normally again. The amount of chakra she had gathered was restricting her movements, and she began to calculate how much chakra she would have left after she had launched the blow she was preparing now. not much. She'd just had to hope it would be enough to take out her opponent. After experimenting for a few minutes with his movements, Sōsuke was able to gain roughly around 70 to 75% control over his body. Not ideal but it would do, he was going to try to finish this with one strike. If this did not work he would be down to his last trick. He released his cursed seal and stood within the water prison. Opening more of the Eight Gates he finally opened the first seven gates. He made a fist in front of his face with one hand and then tapped it with his other, which created a massive amount of air pressure resembling a tiger. He then released the water prison and aiming at the real Kineda, formed a unique hand seal and launched the Secondary Tiger at her. Upon seeing the gigantic tiger-like creature speeding at her, Kineda reacted lightning-fast and launched her own technique. Throwing her fist forward, she activated her own' Typhon's Endless Hatred and aimed it in the middle of the tiger. The clash and the pressure that followed afterwards blew her away, and she hit the ground so hard she could feel several ribs breaking. Before she passed out, her medical mind automatically told her she was going to be alright, and she smiled. Blood dripped from the corner of her mouth when she closed her eyes, the last thing she saw while conscious being the imaginary face of her lover. Sōsuke was slammed into a rocky outcropping as the pressure from the two attacks blew them both away. He had been stunned by her response but had had the presence of mind to activate his cursed deal at the last moment. That had saved him from getting crushed to death. He got up spitting blood and took a few staggering steps before leaning against the outcropping. His opponent was down; he had won but had he was as close to death to death as he had ever been. He was lucky she passed out as activating the cursed seal had taken everything out of him and he was spent. Raizen walked up to him and catching him guided him away from the arena. "''You did good my friend. Now rest." As they passed Kineda, who was being held up and attended by one of the other masked men, he told Raizen to stop and bowed in front of her and said "Tell her she pushed me further than anyone ever has. It was an honor fighting her and I hope to meet her again under more friendly circumstances". Round 1 Winner: Sōsuke Round 2: A Bad Papercut The masked man who was holding up Kineda checked her vital organs quickly but precisely, concluding that she was gonna be alright. Leaving her to the care of the second female member of the team, he stepped into the arena and waited for his opponent. Raizen deposited his comrade into Kori's hands and turned to face the arena. A masked fighter was already waiting there. Picking up his blade, Kyō, from the wall where it rested he began to walk to walk up to the man but was stopped by a mirror of ice that appeared in front of him. Placing his hand on Raizen's shoulder Kori stepped forward and said, "Let me take this one brother. You can fight one of the other two." Saying this he walked up to his opponent and waited for him to make the first move. The cold eyes behind the emotionless mask stared at Kori for a while, while both fighters stood face to face. Then, the masked opponent extended his arm towards him, launching a stream of paper towards Kori, while a Giant Paper Shuriken was formed in hit other hand. Kori instinctively jumped back and made the dragon hand seal to use his Ice Release: Frozen Dragon King. An ice dragon appeared behind him and wrapped its wings around Kori an instance before the stream of papers hit him. The pieces of paper began to cut through the dragon but it held through the barrage until Kori dispersed it and with the paper stream gone rushed his opponent and went to grab his hand holding the Giant Paper Shuriken. The hand which Kori grabbed fell apart into paper sheets, who covered his arm, pressing so hard the muscles couldn't move themselves anymore. Meanwhile, Kirasei fired the giant paper shuriken at Kori from point-blank range as his other arm also turned into sheets, firing a continues stream if paper at the ice-user. Using his one free hand Kori made the appropriate hand seals and used the ice scattered on the ground from his ice dragon to use his Ice Prison Technique to protect himself. He waited for the attack to pass and then shattered his prison. Irked that he had been forced to go on the defensive twice already, he began preparing his next attack but then Raizen suddenly appeared in front of him. He faced the opposing team and said, "I'm sorry but this ends here. We forfeit. You win." Result: Team Kirā forfeit. Team Yotogi win.